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WHY  PROGRESS  IS  BY  LEAPS 


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REPRINTED    FROM  APPLETONS^  POPULAR  SCIENCE  MONTHLY 

FOR  JUNE,  1896 


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Reprinted  from  Appletons'  Popuhif  Science  Monthly 
for  June,  1896. 


WHY   PROGRESS   IS   BY   LEAPS. 

By  GEORGE   ILES. 


AS  master  of  electricity  man  is  crowned  the  king  of  Nature. 
-  .A  1)rief  glance  at  what  electricity  has  done  and  promises  to 
do  may  have  interest  in  itself;  it  may  have  yet  more  in  disclos- 
ing the  law  by  which  art  and  science  march  onward  with  ever- 
hastened  i)a('e,  how  it  comes  about  that  the  history  of  m(^dern 
progress  is  little  else  than  a  story  of  revolution.  We  shall  see 
that  the  subjugation  of  electricity  means  for  thought  and  work 
not  an  addition  merely,  but  a  multiplier.  It  marries  the  resources 
of  the  mechanic,  the  engineer,  the  chemist,  the  artist,  with  issue 
attested  by  all  its  own  fertility,  while  it  annexes  province  after 
province  unimagined  before  its  advent.  Because  the  latest  up- 
wai'd  stride  in  knowledge  and  faculty  has  fallen  to  the  lot  of  the 
electrician,  he  has  broadened  the  scientific  horizon  vastly  more 
than  any  earlier  explorer;  beyond  any  predecessor  he  has  found 
more  in  the  field  wherewith  to  prove  the  fecundity  that  infallibly 
stamps  every  supremely  great  agent  of  discovery.  As  we  trace  a 
few  of  the  unending  interlacements  of  electrical  science  and  art 
with  other  sciences  and  arts,  we  shall  be  reminded  of  a  series  of 
permutations  where  the  newest  of  the  factors,  because  newest, 
multiplies  all  the  factors  that  went  before  by  an  unexampled 
leap.*  We  shall  find  reason  to  believe  that  this  is  not  merely 
probable,  but  really  is  as  a  tendency  true,  and  not  alone  of  the 
ga,ins  which  follow  in  the  train  of  conquered  electricity,  but  also 
with  regard  to  every  other  signal  victory  which  has  brought  man 

*  Permutations  of  two  elements,  1  and  2,  are  (1x2)  two :  1,2;  2,  1 ;  or  a,  f> ;  b,  a. 
Of  three  elements  the  permutations  are  (1  x  2  x  3)  six :  1,  2,  3 ;  1,  3,  2  ;  2,  1,  3 ;  2,  3,  1 ; 
8,  1,  2 ;  3,  2,  1  ;  or  a,  b,  c  ;  a,  r,  6  ;  6,  a,  c  ,•  6,  c,  a;  c,  a,  b  ;  e,  A,  a.  Of  four  elements  the 
permutations  are  (1  x2x3x4)  twenty-four ;  of  five  elements,  one  hundred  and  twenty,  and 
so  on.  A  new  element  or  permutator  multiplies  by  an  increasing  figure  all  the  permutations 
it  finds. 

COPTKIGHT,   1806,  BT  D.  APPI.KTON  AND  ColfPANT. 


a  WHY  PROGRESS  IS  BY  LEAPS. 

to  liis  present  pinnacle  of  power  and  insight.  If  in  former  ad- 
vances this  perniutative  princii)le  has  been  undetected,  it  stands 
forth  in  clearest  relief  in  that  latest  and  therefore  utmost  stride 
of  skill  and  interjn'etation  ushered  in  by  Franklin,  Volta,  and 
Faraday.  And  we  shall  presently  note  that  this  pernnifative 
tendency  oilers  a  key  to  some  i)uzzling  chapters  in  the  biography 
of  the  creatures  which  man  has  far  outstrij)ped  in  the  race  of  life, 
and  may  also  shed  a  needed  ray  on  the  story  of  the  planet  where 
they  and  he  have  together  struggled  and  vanquished  or  suc- 
cumbed. If  all  this  may  be  maintained,  a  permutative  tendency 
can  perhaps  be  siiggested  with  res])ect  to  evolution  in  general  as 
color.ibly  as  with  regard  to  development  in  particular  realms.  Is 
this  a  large  claim  ?    To  the  evidence,  then  : 

By  way  of  preface,  let  us  for  a  moment  consider  the  achieve- 
ment most  worthy  to  be  compared  with  the  conquest  of  electricity, 
and,  indeed,  its  necessary  precursor. 

When  man  first  kindled  fire,  he  rose  to  a  new  primacy  among 
created  beings.  Long  before  that  fateful  day  he  must  have  no- 
ticed how  the  blaze  of  a  tree  riven  by  lightning  could  bring  roots 
and  herbs  to  refreshing  palatability,  or,  as  a  far  volcano  welled 
forth  its  lava,  how  welcome  the  radiance  in  wintry  air.  What,  he 
may  have  thought,  if  I  can  summon  fire  at  my  bidding  instead  of 
waiting  upon  heaven  to  let  it  fall  or  earth  to  belch  it  forth  ?  How 
the  wish  came  to  fulfillment  has  been  the  subject  of  many  an  in- 
genious guess.  The  likeliest  of  them  imagines  tliat  in  striking  a 
bit  of  quartz  against  a  flint  to  point  an  arrow,  a  spark  fell  on  dry 
tinder,  and  that  what  at  first  was  accident  was  soon  repeated  by 
design.  No  ])iecemeal  acquisition  this,  like  learning  to  hit  a 
mark  with  stone  or  bolt.  The  man  barelv  able  to  light  a  fire  was 
enormously  advantaged  as  comjjared  with  his  fellow,  however 
dexterous,  who  just  fell  short  of  this  skill.  At  once  the  fire- 
maker  took  a  bound  forward  that  decisively  withdrew  him  from 
his  next  of  kin.  It  was  as  if  the  globe  had  ex])anded  itself  be- 
neath his  tread  ;  for  now,  no  longer  chained  by  the  sunbeam,  all 
the  frozen  noi'th  was  added  to  his  liunting  ground.  The  burning 
brand  cleared  his  path  through  tlie  forest  or  shaped  from  a  tree 
trunk  his  rude  canoe.  It  lifted  the  dreary  pall  of  night.  His 
hearth,  hea[)ed  with  boughs,  cheered  with  light  as  well  as  warmth, 
and  became  the  family  rallying  place  and  altar.  Baneful  roots 
buried  in  its  embers  lost  their  poison  and  furnislied  a  toothsome 
meal,  while  food  of  many  kinds  when  roasted  or  seethed  was  im- 
proved in  flavor  and  could  be  longer  stored  to  abridge  the  seesaw 
between  plenty  and  want.  As  the  cook  daubed  clay  on  her  roast- 
, ing  tray  of  twigs  that  it  might  the  better  withstand  flame,  she 
soon  learned  that  clay  by  itself  was  a  capital  material  for  oven, 
pot,  or  liettle,  and  S^ivres  and  Worcester,  with  all  their  varied  art, 


WHY  PB 00 BESS  IS  BY  LEAPS.  % 

here  took  their  rise.  As  primitive  fisherman  and  hunter,  man 
employed  fire  to  lure  his  prey,  to  affright  the  beasts  to  which  he 
himself  was  prey,  or  to  yield  protecting  smoke  against  insect  pests 
scarcely  less  to  be  dreaded.  In  later  ages  as  mariner  he  erected 
on  storm-beaten  coasts  beacons  whose  carefully  tended  blaze  gave 
warning  or  comfort  to  drifting  voyagers,  the  flickering  ray  fore- 
telling the  sunlike  beam  of  Sandy  Hook  or  Skerryvore.  As  war- 
rior he  crowned  the  hills  with  similar  flares  to  voice  alarm  to 
scattered  allies,  prefiguring  every  modern  telegraph.  Again,  as 
warrior,  having  profited  by  the  hardness  fire  conferred  upon  his 
wooden  spear,  he  was  to  receive  gifts  yet  greater.  Where,  as  on 
the  shores  of  Lake  Superior,  native  copper  almost  pure  lay  upon 
the  ground,  it  was  laboriously  pounded  into  the  primitive  knife 
or  hammer.  With  fire  his  servant,  the  savage  was  independent 
of  such  rare  finds.  Wherever  he  came  upon  an  earthy  mass,  glit- 
tering with  however  small  a  fraction  of  metal,  he  had  but  to 
bring  the  ore  to  his  hearth  to  free  copper  or  iron  from  its  bond- 
age. There  and  then  the  art  of  the  founder  began  to  take  the 
place  of  the  drudgery  of  the  smith — a  supersedure  characteristic 
enough  and  one  of  an  uncounted  series  where  good  has  had  to 
make  way  for  better,  where  the  worker  and  the  fighter  himself 
has  been  overcome  by  stronger  thews  and  keener  wits.  No  tri- 
umph of  miner  or  chemist,  of  engineer  on  land  or  sea,  that  does 
not  date  from  the  memorable  hour  when  a  savage  just  a  little 
cleverer  than  his  fellows  kindled  for  himself  a  blaze.  Plainly, 
then,  fire  came  among  the  resources  of  man  as  a  permutator  of 
exalted  power.  It  gave  an  impulse  to  food-getting,  to  tool  and 
weapon  making,  to  building,  to  migration,  to  every  art  that 
cheered  and  adorned  the  home.  It  was  an  influence  as  pregnant 
as  any  that  has  made  man  human  and  brought  the  empire  of 
Nature  to  his  feet. 

Through  the  course  of  all  the  ages  since,  almost  down  to  our 
own  day,  flame  had  beside  her  a  twin  force  all  unrecognized. 
Elusive  as  a  wood  nymph  she  glinted  as  lightning,  or  as  the 
aurora  streamed  fitfully  across  the  sky.  Anon  she  condescended 
to  the  amber  of  the  sea  beach,  which  under  gentle  friction  drew 
to  itself  fragments  of  fallen  leaves,  of  withered  straw.  In  yet 
other  guise  she  defied  the  downward  tendency  of  unsupported 
masses,  and,  as  the  legend  tells  us,  sorely  puzzled  a  she])herd  in 
bidding  his  crook  cling  fast  to  the  ceiling  of  a  cave  roofed,  as  we 
would  say  now,  with  magnetic  ore.  At  a  later  day  the  magnet 
became  something  more  than  an  empty  marvel,  and  as  the  com- 
pass assumed  the  office  of  guiding  sun  and  star  when  these  were 
hidden.  Little  wonder  that  so  various  a  masquerade  was  long 
impenetrable,  that  Franklin  less  than  five  generations  ago  should 
detect  that  lightning  and  electricity  are  one,  and  that  only  in  our 


4  WJJV  PROGRESS  IS  BY  LEAPS. 

day  at  the  hands  of  Hertz  has  it  been  demonstrated  that  the  elec- 
tric pulse  differs  only  from  the  wave  of  heat  or  light  in  being 
longer.  This  discovery  of  Hertz  was  long  ago  foreshadowed  in 
the  observation  that  heat  can  have  electric  origin.  One  of  the 
first  fruits  of  electrical  study  was  the  finding  that  some  metals 
transmit  electricity  better  than  others,  and  that  the  efficacy  of  a 
conductor  depends  in  part  on  its  size.  When  a  conducting  wire 
was  reduced  to  extreme  tenuity,  the  resistance  to  the  current's 
passage,  with  striking  resemblance  to  common  friction,  expressed 
itself  as  vivid  heat.  The  miner  and  the  gunner  at  once  saw  their 
opportunity  to  use  electricity  to  toTich  off  their  f\iscs  and  to  ex- 
plode at  the  same  instant,  with  an  effect  before  impossible,  a  I'ound 
of  separate  charges. 

Copying  the  methods  of  the  miner,  the  mechanic  and  the 
chemist  very  often  find  electric  heat  the  most  advantageous  they 
can  employ.  When  the  broken  blade  of  a  propeller  is  to  be  re- 
paired, the  electric  welder  can  be  taken  to  its  work  instead  of  the 
work  having  to  go  to  a  stationai'y  welder.  When  electric  heat  is 
carried  into  a  crucible  through  almost  impenetrable  walls  of  gy])- 
sum,  it  enters  the  very  heart  of  its  task  without  the  offense  and 
waste  of  fiame.  Thus  to-day  is  flame  face  to  face  with  a  sup- 
planter  in  the  shape  of  its  long  undetected  twin.  Until  this  gen- 
eration (lanie  alone  was  the  source  not  only  of  heat,  but  of  the 
beam  of  candle,  lamp,  and  gas  jet.  Today  myriads  of  electric 
bulbs  are  aglow  without  flame — indeed,  just  because  combustion  is 
rendered  impossible  by  the  rigid  exclusi(m  of  air.  As  these  in- 
candescent lamps  were  long  ago  ))rophesied  in  the  miner's  electric 
fuse,  so  also  has  the  fii'st  simple  process  of  the  electroplater  led 
up  to  an  art  incomparably  more  important.  To-day  not  surfaces 
merely,  but  large  masses,  chiefly  oi  statuary,  are  built  in  cool 
tanks  by  electricity.  Let  the  current  become  cheaper  still,  and 
the  founder  may  find  the  remainder  of  his  business  tiansferred  to 
this  formidable  rival,  the  warping  heats  of  sand  molds  banished, 
the  scorching  temperature  of  crucible  and  ladle  a  reminiscence. 
The  same  fate  may  be  in  store  for  the  smelting  furnace.  Already 
vast  quantities  of  cop})er  are  refined  electrolytically,  and  an  au- 
spicious beginning  has  been  made  in  using  electricity  for  the  whole 
process  of  parting  mi'tal  from  ore.  Thus  methods  which  com- 
menced in  dismissing  fiame  end  boldly  by  eliminating  heat  itself. 
This  usurping  electricity,  it  may  be  said,  usually  finds  its  source, 
after  all,  in  fire  under  a  steam  boiler.  True,  but  mark  the  harness- 
ing of  Niagara,  of  the  Lachine  Rapids  near  Montreal,  of  a  thou- 
sand streams  elsewhere.  In  the  years  of  the  near  future  motive 
power  of  Nature's  giving  is  to  be  wasted  less  and  less,  and  per- 
force will  more  and  more  exclude  heat  from  the  chain  of  trans- 
formations which  issue  in  the  locomotive's  flight,  in  the  whirl  of 


WHV  PROGRESS  IS  BY  LEAPS.  $ 

factory  and  mill ;  and  thus  in  some  degree  is  allayed  the  fear, 
never  well  grounded,  that  when  the  coal  fields  of  the  world  are 
spent,  civilization  must  collapse.  As  the  electrician  hears  this 
foreboding,  he  recalls  how  much  fuel  is  wasted  in  converting  heat 
into  electricity.  He  looks  beyond  either  turbine  or  shaft  turned 
by  wind  or  tide,  and,  remembering  tbat  the  zinc  dissolved  in  his 
battery  yields  at  his  will  its  full  content  of  energy,  either  as  heat 
or  electricity,  lie  asks.  Why  may  not  coal  and  forest  tree,  which 
are  but  other  kinds  of  fuel,  be  made  to  do  the  same  ? 

In  another  field  let  us  observe  electricity  as  a  factor  of  fruit- 
fulness  quite  as  singular.  It  was  at  first  tlie  chemist  who  eman- 
cipated electricity  for  new  and  myriad  uses.  His  successor  to-day 
is  the  engineer,  who  wins  his  spurs  by  bringing  his  generator  to 
practical  perfection,  by  improving  his  steam  and  gas  engines  to 
double  their  efficiency  of  thirty  years  ago.  If  to  the  engijieer  and 
mechanic  the  electric  art  owes  much,  magnificently  lias  tlie  debt 
been  repaid.  As  we  discover  in  replacing  at  our  street  door  an 
old-fashioned  moving  boll  pull  by  an  electric  wire  armed  with  a 
})ush  button,  electricity  transmits  motion  without  movement  of 
its  conductor  as  a  mass.  Availing  himself  of  this  golden  property, 
the  machinist  removes  from  his  shop  a  labyrinth  of  wheels  and 
belts  and  puts  in  their  stead  a  few  wires  at  rest,  each  in  charge 
of  the  motor  actuating  a  machine.  Manifold  gains  result.  The 
power  needed  to  whirl  these  wheels  and  belts  is  saved,  and  when 
but  one  or  two  machines  of  a  large  number  are  to  be  set  in  motion 
the  economy  rises  to  a  high  figure,  while  the  workshop  is  lighter, 
cleaner,  more  wliolesome  in  every  way.  Since  electricity  is  of  all 
phases  of  energy  the  easiest  to  preserve  from  losses  resembling 
leakage  or  friction,  the  current  can  not  only  be  distributed 
throughon  the  largest  workshop  with  convenience  and  economy, 
it  can  be  sent  to  the  shop  from  an  engine  or  a  water  wheel  many 
miles  away,  as  in  connecting  motors  at  Buffalo  to  dynamos  at 
Niagara,  twenty-seven  miles  distant.  With  the  transmission  of 
electricity  for  distances  vastly  exceeding  twenty-seven  miles  we 
have  long  been  ^amiliar  in  the  telegraph.  It  is  by  improving  the 
coverings  which  prevent  the  current  escaping  from  its  wire,  by 
taking  advantage  of  the  fact  that  a  wire  can  almost  as  well  carry 
a  current  of  high  tension  as  of  low,  and,  above  all,  by  increasing 
the  quantity  of  the  current  so  as  to  make  the  enterprise  worth 
while,  that  the  telegraphy  of  power  has  followed  upon  the  teleg- 
raphy of  mere  signals. 

In  the  telegraph  at  work  over  long  distances  a  remarkable 
peculiarity  of  electricity  displays  itself.  In  days  of  yore,  when 
letters  were  intrusted  to  a  chain  of  messengers,  each  of  whom  bore 
the  pouch  for  a  stage  of  its  journey,  a  carrier  might  come  to  the 
end  of  his  trip  utterly  fagged  out;  but  if  he  had  barely  the 


6  WHY  PROGRESS  IS  BY  LEAPS. 

strength  to  pass  liiH  burden  to  the  next  man  it  was  enough. 
Mucli  the  same  is  tlio  system  of  relays  wljen  a  telegram  takes  its 
way  from  New  York  to  Tacoma.  First  it  goes  to  Buffalo,  where 
the  current,  faint  after  its  run  of  four  hundred  an<l  forty  miles, 
touches  off  a  second  ])()Worful  current  born  in  Buffalo.  This  in 
its  turn  boars  the  dispatch  to  Chicago.  There  a  third  current  is 
Impressed  into  service,  and  so  on,  until  at  the  end  of  a  succession 
of  transfers  the  words  are  clicked  out  in  Tacoma.  This  whole 
process  is  committed  to  self-acting  repeaters  that  do  their  work  in 
the  fraction  of  a  second.  It  is  in  i)ulling  triggers  in  such  fashion 
as  this,  in  liberating  forces  indefinitely  greater  than  the  initial 
impulse,  that  electricity  brings  to  muscles  of  brass  and  steel  some- 
thing very  like  a  nervous  system,  so  that  the  merest  touch  directs 
the  course  of  a  steamship  through  the  tempest- tossed  Atlantic. 
Engineer,  workman,  and  artist  can  thus  reserve  their  strength  for 
tasks  more  profitable  than  muscular  dead  lift  and  find  their  sweep 
of  initiation  and  control  broadened  to  the  utmost  bound.  In  the 
field  of  war,  for  instance,  a  torpedo  can  be  launched,  propelled, 
steered,  and  exploded  by  a  telegraph  key  a  mile  or  two  away ;  the 
constructor  may,  indeed,  confidently  give  all  his  orders  in  advance 
and  build  a  torpedo  which  will  fulfill  a  fate  of  both  murder  and 
suicide  predestined  in  its  cams  and  magnets.  Or  a  camera,  under 
the  control  of  an  operator  at  the  safe  end  of  a  wire,  is  sent  soar- 
ing in  a  balloon  car  above  an  enemy's  camp,  effectively  playing 
the  spy. 

Another  apparatus  electric  and  photographic,  happily  less  un- 
common, is  employed  for  observatory  rLi;ords  which,  as  near  Are- 
quipa,  in  Peru,  without  supervision  keeps  itself  busy  for  a  fort- 
night together.  Still  more  remarkable  is  Mr.  Muybridge's  round 
of  cameras,  timed  as  only  electricity  can  time  them,  which  seize 
practically  instantaneous  views  of  figures  in  rapid  motion,  as 
horses  trotting.  In  Mr.  Edison's  kinetoscope  photographs  made 
at  each  forty-sixth  of  a  second  follow  one  another  so  quickly 
under  an  eyepiece  as  to  fuse  with  the  effect  of  life  and  action. 
Pictures  of  birds  thus  caught  on  the  wing  may  prove  seed  corn 
for  harvests  to  be  reaped  by  the  experimenter  in  mechanical 
flight — an  achievement  which,  strange  to  say,  attracts  the  interest 
of  military  rather  than  business  men.  In  the  service  of  war  and 
peace  one  would  suppose  the  ordinary  telegraph  to  be  speedy 
enough.  Not  so,  thinks  the  inventor.  In  the  latest  process  a  dis- 
patch wings  its  way  from  New  York  to  Chicago  at  the  rate  of 
one  thousand  words  a  minute,  to  Philadelphia  thrice  as  fast.  The 
telegram  is  taken  first  to  a  machine  which  symbolizes  each  letter 
as  perforations  on  a  strip  of  paper ;  then  the  strip  is  run  between 
metallic  springs  of  exquisite  delicacy.  At  each  perforation  the 
springs  touch  and  the  current  takes  its  way  through  the  wire. 


WHY  PROGRESS  IS  BY  LEAPS.  7 

At  tlie  receiving  station  the  delay  involved  in  the  arousal  and 
action  of  electro-magnets  is  abolished.  The  current  instant  by  in- 
stant writes  its  message  on  a  moving  ribbon  of  paper  sensitized  so 
as  to  change  color  under  an  electric  flow.  This  instance  is  typical 
of  what  ingenuity  can  do  when  electricity  is  added  to  its  armory. 
A  task  is  divided  between  an  o|)erator  and  an  autonuitic  nuichine 
in  such  wise  that  intelligence  is  allotted  only  that  part  for  whicli 
intelligence  is  required,  while  for  the  remaining  part  the  utmost 
speed  of  electrical  and  chemical  action  is  invoked — a  pace  which 
in  this  particular  case  sixty  fold  outstrips  the  most  dexterous 
manipulation. 

Another  means  by  which  inventors  have  expedited  telegraphy 
has  been  by  transjnitting  several  messages  simultaneously  over  a 
single  wire.  Of  these  multiplex  systems  certain  are  synchronous 
in  principle  and  seem  to  have  suggested  to  Prof.  Elisha  Gray  his 
telautograph,  an  instrument  that  imitates  exactly  the  motion  of  a 
pencil,  in  say  Boston,  by  the  motion  of  another,  in  say  Baltimore, 
reproducing  with  ecpial  facility  either  handwriting  or  outline 
drawing.  To  understand  the  ])rinciple  involved,  let  us  glance  at 
an  everyday  application  of  electricity  in  keeping  scores  of  clock 
pendulums,  no  matter  how  far  apart,  in  perfect  step.  If  two  ])en- 
dulums  at  right  angles  to  each  other  are  attached  to  a  moving 
pencil  their  motions  may  bo  communicated  to  a  distance  by  two 
currents  which  actuate  two  pendulums  in  control  of  a  second  and 
copying  pencil.  The  electric  clock  at  which  we  have  just  been 
looking  can,  if  we  please,  be  sealed  in  a  glazed  box,  secure  from 
dust  and  dampness.  Here  opens  a  fresh  path  to  the  inventor  who 
wishes  to  avoid  the  resistance  or  leakage  entailed  when  a  rod 
moves  through  a  slot  or  a  stufling  box.  It  is  often  of  cardinal 
importance  that  a  bit  of  metal  at  rest  shoiild  throb  with  a  jmlse 
strong  enough  to  do  severe  drudgery  or  tell  a  tale  which  other- 
wise would  go  untold.  If  an  engineer  wishes  to  know  how  much 
heat  wastes  itself  through  the  walls  of  a  steam  cylinder,  his  ques- 
tion is  answered  through  a  motionless  wire  attached  to  a  delicate 
metallic  thermometer  buried  in  the  cylinder's  mass.  In  experi- 
menting with  new  alloys  the  same  method  informs  the  chemist  of 
changes  of  temperature  at  the  core  of  his  crucible,  changes  often 
abrupt  and  transient  and  at  times  denoting  qualities  he  seeks  to 
detain  or  reproduce.  In  a  very  different  domain  of  exploration 
the  engineer  uses  the  telephone  to  expose  perilous  defects  in  metal 
beams. 

As  we  prove  when  we  unhook  a  telephone,  or  lift  an  incan- 
descent lamp,  electricity  readily  traverses  a  flexible  wire:  this  un- 
bars a  fresh  resource  to  invention.  To-day  rock  drills,  coal  cut- 
ters, and  deck  planers  are  designed  in  forms  which  combine  motor 
and  tool ;  so  much  is  thereby  gained  in  adaptability  that  a  re- 


8  WHY  PROGRESS  IS  BY  LEAPS. 

modeling  is  in  progress  of  much  light  machinery  in  its  first  estate 
rigidly  limited  in  play  by  shafts,  belts,  or  gearing.  Dentistry 
and  other  arts  of  refined  manipulation  are  indebted  for  novel 
facilities  to  the  flexible  mechanical  shaft — a  tightly  wound  coil  of 
steel  wire.  This  device  is  in  turn  being  shown  to  the  door  by  the 
new  partnership  between  an  electric  thread  and  a  tool.  And  the 
wire,  however  slender,  which  binds  a  reservoir  of  power  to  its 
work,  can  on  occasion  be  discarded,  as  in  the  rolling  contact  of 
the  electric  trolley  wheel.  And  even  contact  can  be  dispensed 
with  if  strict  economy  is  not  imperative.  We  are  Tamiliar  with 
the  annoyance,  due  to  induction,  of  being  obliged  in  atolei)lione 
circuit  to  overhear  other  subscribers,  whose  wires  are  often  far 
distant  from  our  own.  A  hint  in  this  for  the  engineer  at  the 
head  of  the  British  telegraphs,  Mr.  Preece.  Utilizing  induction, 
he  has  established  a  telegraph  between  Oban  and  Auchnacraig, 
divided  b}'  six  miles  of  sea,  using  wires  strung  along  the  opt)osite 
shores. 

Electricity,  light,  heat,  and  chemical  action  are  all  in  essence 
motion  ;  electricity  is  the  most  desirable  of  them  all,  because  it 
can  most  readily  and  fully  become  the  source  or  issue  of  any 
other.  The  i)re-eniinent  sensitiveness  of  electrical  apparatus 
makes  it  a  surpassing  means  of  measuring  minute  portions  of 
space  or  time,  of  light,  heat,  chemical  activity,  or  mechanical 
motiim.  Hence  a  brood  of  telltales  of  widely  contrasted  pur- 
pose. Selenium,  a  metalloid  of  the  same  lineage  as  sulphui-,  and 
betraying  its  descent  by  a  striking  family  resemblance,  has  the 
cui'ious  property  of  transmitting  electricity  more  freely  in  light 
than  in  darkness  ;  a  stick  of  selenium,  therefore,  is  the  pivot  of  a 
device  +o  give  warning  when  extinction  befalls  a  lamp  charged 
with  iuiportant  duty.  In  thermometers  a  circuit  broken  or  com- 
pleted acts  as  a  fire  signal,  or,  on  shi[)board,  heralds  the  ap- 
proach of  an  iceberg.  Electric  fingers  sound  a  gong  when  the 
water  recedes  below  the  safety  level  in  a  steam  boiler,  or  report 
an  attempted  breach  of  bolt  or  bar  by  the  burglar's  jimmy. 
Each  of  these  warnings  can  be  registered  at  a  distance,  so  that  in 
case  of  neglect  by  an  attendant  there  can  be  no  disputing  the  fact. 
Now,  if  an  electric  alarm  can  summon  a  servant  to  duty,  why  may 
not  the  inventor  go  further,  and  so  .add  to  his  device  that  it  shall 
of  its  own  motion  do  what  needs  to  be  done  ?  Accordingly,  we 
find  furnaces  fitted  up  with  electrical  control,  so  that  the  draft  is 
opened  or  fuel  added  when  the  temperature  falls  too  low,  or  the 
reverse,  when  the  flame  is  too  fierce ;  when  the  fuel  is  gas  this 
stoking  leaves  nothing  to  be  desired.  New  mechanism  of  this 
kind  is  constantly  being  contrived.  The  inventor  who  began  by 
conferring  electric  nerves  on  muscles  of  brass  and  iron  has, 
thanks  to  electricity,  gone  the  length  of  combining  his  wires  and 


WHY  PROGRESS  IS  BY  LEAPS.  9 

magnets  into  something  very  like  a  conscious  and  responsive 
brain  :  his  intelligence  culminates  in  duplicating  itself. 

Prodigal  as  electricity  is  of  gifts  to  the  mechanic  and  engineer, 
it  as  generously  multiplies  the  resources  of  their  friend  and  part- 
ner, the  chemist.  Electricity,  we  must  not  forget,  was  presented 
to  the  world  as  a  stream  of  tolerably  even  flow,  by  a  process  of 
chemical  undoing,  in  Volta's  crown  of  cups.  If  chemical  taking 
apart  can  yield  a  current,  a  current  can  in  turn  be  used  to  build, 
as  every  piece  of  plating  proves.  Yet  to  construct  a  battery  in 
which  both  processes  shall  alternate,  without  undue  weight  or 
waste  of  material,  is  a  task  as  yet  not  satisfactorily  accomplished, 
despite  constant  and  ingenious  attack.  A  thoroughly  good  and 
simple  storage  battery  would  mean  nearly  as  much  for  electric 
art  as  the  dynamo.  From  a  dynamo  it  would  receive  currents  de- 
rived from  wind  or  water  powers,  or  from  engines  temporarily 
laden  below  their  capacity,  and  use  these  currents  to  restore  a 
metal  from  its  solution  by  a  process  exactly  that  of  electroplat- 
ing. Then,  on  demand,  it  would  yield  electricity  once  more  by 
surrendering  this  metal  to  solution,  as  a  common  voltaic  battery 
does.  If  the  chemist  has  thus  far  l)et'n  somewhat  balHed  by  the 
problems  of  the  storage  battery,  he  has  had  better  fortune  in 
other  fields  of  endeavor.  Electricity  joined  to  heat  hands  him  a 
two-edged  sword  of  irresistible  cleaving  power.  Compounds, 
such  as  those  of  chromium,  of  peculiar  refractoriness,  are  readily 
parted  in  the  electric  furnace  of  Moissan,  and  elements  once  ex- 
tremely rare  are  now  marketed  in  quantity  at  prices  steadily  fall- 
ing. A  generation  ago  aluminum  was  so  scarce  and  dear  that  it 
was  formed  into  jewelry ;  to-day  the  metal  has  been  so  cheapened 
by  electricity  that  it  finds  a  renidy  sale  as  kitchen  ware.  Minute 
diamonds  and  rubies  of  electric  manufacture  are  now  competing 
with  the  product  of  the  mine,  and  materials  used  on  a  gigantic 
scale  in  the  arts — caustic  soda,  bleaching  powder,  and  the  like — are 
produced  at  less  cost  than  ever  by  electrical  agency.  The  chemist, 
when  he  chooses,  can  beat  his  electrical  sword  into  a  trowel,  and 
build  compounds  which  seem  prophetic  of  the  day  when  the  slow 
elaborations  of  the  farm  and  orchard  shall  make  way  for  the  arti- 
ficial synthesis  of  sugars,  oils,  and  starch. 

Greater  than  all  the  wealth  created  by  electricity  in  workshop 
or  laboratory  are  its  aids  to  pure  research.  The  chief  physical 
generalization  of  our  time,  the  persistence  of  force,  came  into 
view  only  when  electricity  was  recognized  as  a  phase  of  energy, 
only  when  electrical  means  of  measurement  had  become  trust- 
worthy. It  is  because  men  of  absolutely  disinterested  spirit,  like 
Faraday  and  Henry,  devoted  themselves  to  ascertaining  the  laws 
of  electricity  that  we  have  to-day  the  telegraph,  the  telephone,  and 
the  electric  furnace.    "  Before  there  can  be  applied  science  there 


lo         WHY  PROGRESS  IS  BY  LEAPS. 

must  be  science  to  apply,"  and  it  is  in  enabling  the  investigator 
to  know  Nature  under  a  fresh  aspect  that  electricity  rises  to  its 
highest  office.  As  a  case  in  point,  take  the  bolometer  of  Prof.  S. 
P.  Langley :  its  delicate  wire,  sensitive  to  one  millionth  of  a  de- 
gree centigrade,  is  moved  by  minute  steps  through  the  invisible 
areas  of  the  solar  spectrum ;  each  indication  of  temperature, 
automatically  photographed,  comes  out  in  a  series  of  dark  and 
bright  lines.  This  process,  repeated  with  each  chemical  element, 
promises  that  one  day  the  physicist  will  have  before  him  a  full 
or  tolerably  complete  map  of  every  distinctive  spectrum.  He 
can  then  ask,  Given  such  and  such  vibrations,  how  is  the  body 
constituted  that  sent  them  forth  ? — much  as  a  musician  might  try 
to  reason  from  the  tone  and  timbre  of  a  note  to  the  structure  of 
the  instrument  which  uttered  the  note.  In  further  uses  of  pho- 
tography the  physicist,  by  means  of  instantaneous  contacts,  is 
beginning  to  find  out  what  goes  on  in  the  critical  moments  when 
chemical  collisions  in  the  voltaic  cell  are  gliding  into  electric 
waves — an  inquiry  which  bears  on  the  prime  question  of  electric 
art,  namely,  how  the  chemical  energy  conttVTiod_iri  cop!  can  be 
transformed  into  a  current  without  the  enormous  levies  imposed 
by  the  steam  engine.  Hertz,  in  the  purely  scientific  excursion  by 
which  he  generated  electric  waves  intermediate  in  length  be- 
tween those  of  sound  and  light,  came  upon  a  discovery  of  pro- 
found interest — that,  given  its  appropriate  ray,  every  substance 
whatever  offers  it  a  free  and  open  path.  It  remained  for  Prof. 
Rontgen  to  complete  the  proof  that  certain  of  these  rays,  while 
refusing  obedience  to  the  laws  of  light,  can,  nevertheless,  exert 
photographic  power.  His  apparatus  combines  in  the  happiest  way 
the  utmost  resources  of  both  the  electrician  and  the  photogra- 
pher ;  at  a  vital  point  it  employs  the  singular  capacity  for  fluores- 
cence whereby  the  compounds  of  barium  and  other  substances 
can  convert  to  visibility  an  otherwise  invisible  image.  Apart 
from  such  a  triumph  as  this,  rich  in  possibilities  for  art  and 
science,  the  common  routine  of  ascertaining  electrical  constants 
has  high  value  in  research ;  to  know  the  conductivity,  polariza- 
bility,  and  other  electrical  properties  of  matter  is  to  jjeer  at  its 
architecture  through  new  windows ;  to  detect  many  of  the  links 
which  bind  atom  to  atom,  molecule  to  molecule.  A  new  orches- 
tration of  inquiry  is  possible  through  the  instruments  created  by 
the  electrician,  through  the  advances  in  method  which  these 
instruments  suggest.  Hence  to-day  a  surround  is  in  progress 
which  may  early  in  the  twentieth  century  make  atom  and 
molecule  as  obedient  to  the  chemist  as  brick  and  stone  are  to  the 
builder  now. 

But,  however  much  new  knowledge  may  do  with  electricity, 
some  of  its  best  work  is  already  done.     It  is  not  likely  in  the  f  u- 


WHY  PROGRESS  IS  BY  LEAPS.  it 

ture  to  perform  a  greater  feat  than  placing  all  mankind  within 
earshot  of  each  other.  Were  electricity  unmastered,  there  could 
he  no  democratic  government  of  the  United  States.  To-day  the 
drama  of  national  affairs  is  more  directly  in  the  view  of  every 
American  citizen  than  a  century  ago  the  public  business  of  Dela- 
ware could  be  to  the  men  of  that  little  State.  Railroads,  with  all 
they  mean  for  civilization,  could  not  have  been  born  without  the 
telegraph ;  and  railroads  and  telegraphs  are  the  sinews  and 
nerves  of  national  life,  the  prime  agencies  in  welding  together 
the  diverse  and  widely  separated  States  and  Territories  of  the 
Union.  A  Boston  merchant  builds  a  cotton  mill  in  Georgia ;  an 
Illinois  manufacturer  establishes  an  agency  in  Seattle ;  the  tele- 
graph, which  informs  them  day  by  day  how  their  investments 
prosper,  tells  idle  men  where  they  can  find  work,  where  work 
can  seek  idle  men.  Chicago  is  laid  in  ashes,  Charleston  topples 
in  earthquake,  Johnstown  is  whelmed  in  flood,  and  instantlj''  a 
continent  rises  to  their  relief.  And  benefits  denied  to  charity 
issue  in  the  strictly  commercial  services  of  the  telegraph.  Its 
click  has  exorcised  the  fiend  of  f amino  from  every  quarter  of  the 
civilized  globe ;  for,  with  its  finger  on  the  throttle-valves  of  loco- 
motive and  steamship,  no  longer  does  food  rot  here  when  thou- 
sands lack  bread  there ;  the  markets  of  the  world  are  merged,  and 
that  one  great  market  reaches  every  man's  door. 

In  a  less  conspicuous  way  electricity  works  equal  good.  Its 
motor,  freeing  us  from  the  horse's  deliberate  pace,  is  spreading 
out  our  towns  and  cities  into  their  adjoining  country;  field  and 
garden  compete  with  naiTow  streets ;  the  sunny  cottage  is  in 
rivalry  with  the  odious  tenement  house.  Electric  lines,  at  first 
suburban,  are  now  fast  linking  town  to  town  and  city  to  ci'y, 
while  as  auxiliaries  to  steam  railroiids  they  place  sparsely  settled 
districts  in  the  arterial  current  of  the  world.  Great  as  are  the 
blessings  which  electricity  brings  to  country  folk,  it  stands  ready 
to  bestow  yet  more  in  the  hives  of  population.  Until  a  few  dec- 
ades ago  the  water  supply  of  cities  was  drawn  in  part  from  wells 
here  and  there,  from  lines  of  piping  laid  in  favored  areas,  and  al- 
ways insufficient.  To-day  a  supply  such  as  that  of  New  York  is 
abundant  and  cheap  because  it  enters  every  house.  Let  a  single 
electrical  service  enjoy  a  like  privilege,  and  it  can  offer  a  current 
which  is  heat,  light,  chemical  energy,  or  motive  power  at  a  wage 
lower  than  that  of  any  other  servant.  Unwittingly,  then,  the 
electrical  engineer  is  a  political  reformer  of  high  degree.  All 
that  he  asks  is  that  this  municipal  electricity  shall  be  under  con- 
trol at  once  competent  and  honest.  Let  us  hope  that  his  plea, 
joined  to  others  as  weighty,  may  quicken  the  spirit  of  civic  right- 
eousness so  that  some  of  the  richest  fruits  ever  borne  in  the  gar- 
den of  art  and  science  may  not  be  proffered  in  vain. 


la  WHY   PROGRESS  IS  BY  LEAPS. 

This  rapid  survey  of  what  electricity  has  done  and  yet  may 
do  has  shown  it  the  creator  of  a  thousand  material  resources: 
the  corner  stone  of  ])hysical  generalization ;  a  stimulus  to  the 
moral  sense,  by  making  what  otlierwise  were  an  empty  wish 
rise  to  sympathy  fulfilled ;  wh.ile,  in  more  closely  binding  up  the 
good  of  the  bee  with  the  welfare  of  the  hive,  it  is  an  educator 
and  confirmer  of  every  social  bond.  Are  we  not,  then,  justified 
in  holding  electricity  to  be  a  multiplier  of  faculty  and  insight, 
a  means  of  dignifying  mind  r.nd  soui,  unexnrapled  yince  man  first 
kindled  fire  rnd  rejoiced  ? 

And  the  i>(l\ances  due  to  electricity  have  significance  still 
unexhausted.  It  was  in  1800,  on  the  threshold  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  that  Volta  devised  the  first  battej-y — the  crown  of  cuj)s. 
In  less  than  a  hundrc'd  years  the  force  then  liberated  has  vitally 
interwoven  itself  with  every  art  and  science,  with  fruitage  not 
to  be  imagined  even  by  men  of  the  stature  of  Watt,  Lavoisier, 
or  Hunil)oldt,  Compare  this  rapidity  of  conquest  with  tlie  slow 
adaptation,  through  age  after  age,  of  fire  to  cooking,  snu^lting, 
tempering.  Yet  it  was  ])artly  because  the  use  of  fire  liad  drawn 
out  man's  intelligence  that  he  was  ready  so  qxiickly  to  seize 
upon  electricity  and  subdue  it.  The  principle  of  ])ermutation, 
illustrated  in  both  victories,  interprets  not  only  the  vast  exj)an- 
sion  of  human  empire  won  by  a  new  weapon  of  ])rime  power,  it 
explains  also  why  these  accessions  are  brought  under  rule  with 
ever-accelerated  ])ace.  Every  new  talent  but  clears  the  way  for 
the  talents  newer  still  which  are  born  from  it. 

And  a  fresh  mode  of  mastery  entails  other  consequences  well 
worthy  of  remark.  Suppose  two  contending  armies  face  each 
other,  fairly  matched,  except  that  one  has  the  telegi'aph  and  the 
other  has  not.  Which  will  win  ?  In  less  striking  fashion,  but 
still  decisively,  must  every  factor  of  prime  rank  as  it  made  its 
appearance  have  told  in  the  battles  of  early  man.  Let  us  turn 
from  discovery  and  invention  to  some  consideration  of  the  prin)i- 
tive  discoverer  and  inventor,  and  try  to  recall  the  ejjoch  when  his 
inarticulate  cries  were  becoming  the  rudiments  of  speech.  Let 
us  imagine  him  a  hunter  returning  to  his  fellows  from  a  solitary 
expedition.  He  tells  that  he  saw  a  deer  quench  its  thirst  at  a 
brookside,  but  found  the  animal  too  fleet  for  his  arrow ;  how  he 
heard  in  the  distance  a  bear's  fierce  growl,  and  fortunately  came 
upon  a  cave  where  he  took  refuge  till  the  brute  had  i)assed. 
Such  a  faculty  of  communication  as  this,  even  in  its  beginnings, 
would  give  a  tribe  enjoying  it  an  incalculable  advantage  over  its 
unspeaking  kin.  Speech  makes  the  distant  as  if  present  in  space, 
makes  the  past  as  if  present  in  time ;  it  is  the  first  and  most 
signal  step,  therefore,  by  which  man  conquers  both  space  and 
time.    No  elephant  or  dog,  however  intelligent,  has  means  to  tell 


WHV  PROGRESS  IS  BY  LEAPS.  ij 

what  lie  saw  here  an  hour  ago,  or  what  is  to  be  fourid  there 
beyond  the  range  of  the  eye.  Because  in  early  times  speech  thus 
placed  the  experience  of  one  man  at  the  service  of  other  men, 
the  possessors  of  this  matchless  power  could,  if  they  chose,  exert 
deadly  rivalry  against  their  mute  next  of  kin,  and  either  anni- 
hilate them,  or  banish  them  to  sterile  wilds,  or  degrade  them  to 
servitude.  What  is  probable  here  is  probable  in  other  fields  of 
struggle,  and  we  have  a  hint  as  to  why  connecting  links  in  the 
plexus  of  organic  life  are  either  very  rare  or  wholly  lacking. 
The  introduction  of  a  radically  new  weapon,  or  tool,  would  so  re- 
double the  strength  of  the  creature  able  to  grasp  and  wield  it 
that  its  war  on  competitors  would  end  so  soon  as  to  leave  scarcely 
a  relic  on  the  field. 

Speech  led  to  another  great  achievement  when  it  called  to  its 
aid  the  carved  or  painted  symbol,  the  word-picture,  and  at  last 
the  alphabet.  Then  the  recorder,  the  priest,  the  teacher,  was  no 
longer  a  mere  speaker  who  had  to  be  present  when  he  told  his 
story.  Ages  after  his  death,  his  annals,  prophecies,  parables,  re- 
mained to  be  read,  to  echo  his  voice — and  this  perhaps  on  shores 
many  leagues  remote  from  the  penman's  home  or  grave.  Knowl- 
edge could  now  be  accumulated  as  never  before,  for  every  man 
could  begin  where  the  experience  of  his  predecessors  had  left  otf. 
The  culmination  of  this  mighty  art  issues  to-day  in  two  wonderful 
instruments — the  phonograph,  which  bids  the  spoken  word  record 
and  repeat  itself  with  all  its  characteristic  tones ;  the  camera, 
which  instantly  limns  all  the  eye  can  see  and  more,  which  prints 
much  that  the  tongue  and  the  pen  must  leave  unsaid.  In  a  mas- 
terly discussion  of  the  origin  of  languages  and  the  antiquity  of 
speaking  man,  Mr.  Horatio  Hale  concludes  that  the  acquirement 
of  speech  dates  back  but  eight  to  ten  thousand  years.  He  credits 
speech  and  writing  with  the  sudden  and  wonderful  flowering  of 
human  genius  which  developed  in  Egypt,  Mesopotamia,  Phaniicia, 
Northern  India,  and  China  a  high  and  varied  civilization,  whose 
memorials,  in  their  works  of  art  and  literature,  astonish  us  at  this 
day,  and  in  some  respects  d  fy  imitation.* 

To  i)aint  and  to  write  implies  a  free  and  supple  hand  ;  gesture, 
upon  which  philologists  are  substantially  agreed  that  primitive 
speech  largely  depended,  requires  the  like  freedom  of  hand  and 
arm.  Hence,  before  man  could  paint,  or  write,  or  even  gesticu- 
late, it  was  necessary  that  he  should  be  erect.  Man's  assumption 
of  the  upright  attitude  marks  one  of  the  supreme  stages  of  his 
progress.  What  have  since  become  arms  and  hands,  relieved 
from  tasks  of  locomotion,  were  able  to  come  into  contact  with 

*  Proceedings  of  the  American  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  Buffalo, 
1886,  p.  315. 


i4  WHY  PROGRESS  IS  BY  LEAPS. 

things  and  know  them  more  fully  and  exactly  than  ever  before. 
The  brain,  informed  and  stimulated  by  its  new  harvest  of  impres- 
sions, imagined  fresh  feats  of  skill  and  directed  them.  The  rude 
stone,  lifted  from  the  ground  and  used  as  a  hammer,  was  gradually 
shaped  as  an  axe,  a  scraper,  a  chisel,  an  arrowhead.  There  lay 
the  germ  of  the  ingenuity  which  blossoms  to-day  in  the  locomo- 
tive and  steamship,  in  the  observatory  camera  which  multiplies 
the  known  universe  a  thousand  times,  which  in  the  telephone 
catches  the  echo  of  storms  sweeping  the  solar  disk.  As  with  the 
faculty  of  speech,  so  doubtless  also  when  the  hand  began  to  handle 
and  to  tell  the  brain  what  it  could  feel  and  do.  A  gain  so  preg- 
nant as  dexterity,  even  in  its  feeble  inception,  would  come  as  an 
irresistible  wedge  between  the  fighters  and  the  workers  who  had 
it  and  their  fellows  who  missed  it  by  however  little. 

The  perniututive  tendency  which  we  are  tracing  has  dug  other 
gulfs  than  those  which  part  man  and  anthropoid.  Let  us  glance 
for  a  moment  at  creatures  far  beneath  mankind  in  the  scale  of 
being.  Birds  are  clearly  derived  from  reptiles,  but  how  far  apart 
to-day  are  the  bird  and  the  rejjtile !  It  was  the  power  of  flight, 
with  all  that  it  involved  in  transforming  every  organ  of  the  body, 
in  revolutionizing  habit,  that  stood  at  the  parting  of  the  ways. 
Even  in  its  beginnings  this  power  would  promote  escape  from 
enemies,  the  procuring  food  in  places  otherwise  inaccessible.  In 
the  process  of  natural  selection  here  would  be  the  faculty  valu- 
able beyond  any  other,  and  therefore  first  seized  in  its  favoring 
variations.  Flight  beyond  any  other  capacity  would  thus  be 
developed  and  increased  as  one  generation  succeeded  another, 
until  at  last  the  flier  could  disregard  its  unwinged  enemies,  seek 
food  on  steepest  crag  or  farthest  islet,  and  there  lay  its  eggs  and 
nurse  its  brood  with  none  to  make  it  afraid.  As  far  as  the  fossil 
record  has  been  pieced  together,  it  anjply  warrants  this  view  of  the 
early  history  of  the  avian  race. 

Take  passage  now  to  a  widely  diff'erent  realm  and  note  the  i)er- 
mutative  eft'ect  wrought  when  insects  supplant  the  winds  at  the 
business  of  fertilizing  flowers.  Nectar  secreted  near  the  pollen  of 
a  ])lant  attracts  flies  and  moths  brushed  by  this  pollen ;  they  sail 
away  to  other  flowers  and  tie  a  marriage  knot  with  an  cfl:"ective- 
ness  impossible  to  the  aimless  air.  The  consequence  is  that  sim- 
ply through  such  woolliness  of  vesture  as  enables  them  to  catch 
dust  on  their  clothes,  insects  of  narrowest  intelligence  are  un- 
knowingly the  painters,  scul])tors,  and  perfumers  of  unnumbered 
varieties  of  blossoms.  And  indefinitely  ])rior  to  either  flower  or 
reptile  was  the  day  when  the  eartli,  a  fiery  cloud,  had  come  to  the 
critical  point,  in  its  gradual  loss  of  heat,  where  atom  stood  almost 
within  the  attractive  range  of  atom,  when  the  latent  combinability 
of  matter  we  call  chemical  was  ready  to  be  born.     Was  not  the 


WHY  PROGRESS  IS  BY  LEAPS.  ij 

releasing  touch  of  cold  a  permutator  of  highest  degree  ?  It  made 
every  other  possible,  it  forged  the  first  link  in  the  chain  of  forces, 
vital,  mental,  moral,  in  the  life  of  earth  and  man. 

What  is  hero  indicated  in  outline  was  suggested  by  the  writer 
in  the  Popular  Science  Monthly  for  June,  187G.  He  has  since 
gathered  from  men  of  mark  in  diverse  walks  of  science  data  from 
which  inferences  such  as  those  here  set  forth  may  be  deduced 
in  ample  detail.  These  data  he  expects  in  due  time  to  offer  to 
the  public,  together  with  consideration  of  the  facts  which  mask 
or  qualify  the  permutative  principle  in  evolution— a  principle 
which  accounts  for  the  leaps  of  progress,  human  and  general,  for 
the  accelerations  of  that  progress,  and  for  there  being  chapters 
missing  in  its  story. 


•  *    *     r     . 


«   • 


Appletons^  Popular  Science  Monthly. 

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